Earlier, exit polls had confirmed Nazarbayev’s overwhelming
victory, while there was a voter turnout of over 95 percent.
International and local observers at polling stations across the
country have reported no significant violations. There were a
total of 858 observers from 19 countries present.

Nazarbayev, who has been in power since 1991, was contested by
two other candidates, the leader of the Communist party and the
leader of the state labor unions federation. However, they are
widely seen as non-competitive, with Nazarbayev clinching 95
percent of the votes in the previous election in 2011. The
country's marginalized opposition hasn't put forward a candidate.

"I am sure Kazakhs will vote primarily for stability,"
Nazarbayev said after casting the vote at one of the polling
stations in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana. He has been the
country's president since the post was established at the
break-up of the Soviet Union.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, 75, is often accused of suppressing
opposition and freedom of speech. In 2014, the French
Geopolitical Crime Observatory gave him the title 'Dictator of
the Year', beating Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as well as
three toppled leaders: Tunisian Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt's
Hosni Mubarak and Haitian Jean-Claude Duvalier. Opposition
journalists accuse him of cultivating a personality cult, to
which he owes his high election results.

Nazarbayev is promising to take his country into the world's top
30 best-developed countries.

"Should Kazakhs show me their trust again, my first act will
naturally be to create a committee on implementing five
constitutional reforms," he said. Those reforms are aimed at
"not letting the global crisis negatively affect
[Kazakhstan's] development, to maintain the speed of growth and
prepare grounds for a new leap ahead."

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
has complained about Nazarbayev's "institutional
advantage," saying his posters were visible throughout the
country, while the other candidates presented little to no
campaigning. However, the electoral committee says all camps were
given equal opportunities to rally support.

The election comes a year earlier than scheduled. The decision to
hold a snap vote was taken after calls from the advisory body
Kazakhstan People's Assembly. It said the president needed "a
new mandate of people's trust to ensure the country can withstand
the period of global hardship," referring to an overall
difficult global economic situation.